Introduction

Biography

Perosi, a com­pos­er of sac­red mu­sic, was the on­ly mem­ber of the Gio­va­ne Scu­ola who did not write op­era.

In the late 1890s, while he was still in his 20s, Pe­rosi was an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ce­le­brat­ed com­pos­er, es­pe­ci­al­ly of large-scale ora­to­rios.

Nobel Prize win­ner Ro­main Rol­land wrote: It’s not ea­sy to give an ex­act idea of how po­pu­lar Lo­ren­zo Pe­ro­si is in his na­tive coun­try.

Perosi’s fame was not re­strict­ed to Eur­ope. A March 19, 1899 New York Times ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled The Ge­ni­us of Don Pe­ro­si began: The great and ev­er-in­creas­ing suc­cess which has greeted the four new ora­to­ri­os of Don Lo­ren­zo Pe­ro­si has placed this young priest-com­pos­er on a pe­des­tal of fame which can on­ly be com­pared with that which has been accord­ed of late years to the id­ol­ized Pie­tro Mas­cag­ni by his fel­low-countr­ymen.

Gianandrea Ga­vaz­ze­ni made the same com­pa­ri­son: The sud­den cla­mors of ap­plause, at the end of the [19th] cen­tu­ry, were just like those a de­cade ear­li­er for Mas­ca­gni.

Perosi worked for five popes, in­clud­ing Pi­us X, who great­ly fos­tered his rise.